A so-called ‘smart card’ utilises an antenna or a contact pad having a set of physical metal, usually gold, contacts along with a small embedded microcontroller. The smart card is usually used as the card itself, for example, in the case of SIM cards for mobile telecommunications devices, or mounted to a larger substrate, such as in the case of credit or payment cards and identification cards.
The contact pads must be dimensioned correctly and typically to ISO7816 in order for the readers, such as a payment terminal or security card reader, into which the smart card is insertable to form the correct electrical connection. However, such a contact pad utilises precious metals, such as gold, so as to be compatible with assembly processes during production of the larger substrates to which the smart card is mounted. The cost of raw materials is increasing along with demand, but it is prohibitively expensive to the industry to implement different materials along with the re-qualification activity required in order to verify the robustness, longevity and security of any new arrangement.
The present invention therefore seeks to provide an improved smart card carrier strip on which more smart card contact pads can be formed whilst utilising the same amount of material for the carrier strip.